That two highly successful and relatively young "hard-rock" bands could play within two blocks of each other in as many days in front of screaming sold-out crowds and not share a similarity beyond those labels says a lot for rock 'n' roll in 2015.
First up was Bring Me the Horizon, whose That's the Spirit ( Columbia/Sony Records ) dropped just six weeks ago and has already logged time at the very top of the album charts. As a band that has been called "metal core," "death metal," "post-hardcore" and "grindcore" at the start of the act's career eight years ago, it's recently been accused of getting all wussy and cranking out "metal pop." After hearing Spirit and seeing them in front of a screaming horde at The Aragon Ballroom on Oct. 13, I beg to differ.
Bring Me the Horizon does have quite the T-Rex snap in its attack and a deceptively nihilistic lyrical bent that makes the band members look like obnoxiously cranky doomsayers, at first glance. What the band members do really well is incorporate all manner of seemingly incompatible flavors in the music ( electronica, dub-step, progressive, emo ) without losing sight of who/what they are. Front and center is vocalist Oliver Sykes, who looks like a full-grown tattooed Jack Wild and comes with a hard-rock voice for the ages and a charming skill at aiming words like serrated knives. For all the dark lyrical content here ( alienation, isolation, rejection, depression ), Bring Me the Horizon is really a smart, hard-charging machine that offers more uplift then those feral glares suggest.
"Throne"for all the eardrum-shredding thunder that it spews in its fewer than four minutesis really an anthem of determination and spiritual renewal, while "The Happy Song" is about keeping a level head while surrounded by madness.
"Drown," a mid-tempo near-ballad, is the one song here that does not offer a shred of hope. When Sykes murmured, "Won't you drag the lake and bring me home again?," it was easy to see how so many youth want to destroy themselves. "True Friends ( Stab You in the Front )" is the complete opposite and has the right to stand as one of the best "go to hell" ravers ever. ( Think of "Respectable" by the Rolling Stones, CeeLo Green's "F*** You" and LaBelle's "Messin' with My Mind." ) At one instance Sykes crooned, "I'm afraid you asked for this..." and, in the next, barks with paint-peeling fury, "THIS ENDS NOW!!!!"
Onstage, with what looked like a million bucks in lighting behind him, Sykes spent the night crouching and lunging like a manic puppet on a tangled string. Oddly, the legendary note-mangling acoustics of the Aragon accentuated the music, ultimately sending me back to the CD all over again. With the geysers of steam, intense searchlights crisscrossing the ballroom and the band jumping up and down like an aerobics class gone amuck, it was perfectly understandable why this crowd crawled out of this show damp, limp and exhausted.
If Sykes is all about crushing the senses, Jesse Rutherford and his band, The Neighborhood ( a.k.a. The NBHD ), seem to love seducing and drugging them. The debut CD, I Love You ( CBS Records, 2014 ) featured two surprise hits in "Sweater Music" and "Afraid," which, though they featured subtle melodies, were actually put across on sheer atmosphere. For a "hard-rock" band, The NBHD and, in particular, Rutherford's voice are steeped in the stuff and they and it sound dreamy, weary and entirely enrapturing.
The new Wiped Out ( CBS Records ) is more and less of what I Love You suggested. There is nothing here as instantly appealing as "Sweater Music" but that seems to be the point since the CD seems not designed for instant gratification. The melodies are far more subdued but the music and vibe here are deeper and richer making Wiped Out a recording to be savored as a whole.
The single "R.I.P. My Youth" gives a hint as to what this CD means. The song rolls out like an endless throbbing aria, with Rutherford rapping on over what sounds like a bottomless pit. On second listen, it becomes clear that the beauty of the recording is not in what he says but how he says it. "The Beach" is even better with a glacial, shimmering soundscape which is alternately haunting, elegant and melancholic.
If the laid-back angst on Wiped Out makes The NBHD sound it's been spending too much time in Dr. Caligari's Cabinet, the Oct. 15 show at The Riviera transcribed the music into a mind-bending blend of performance art, digital imagery, audio art and opera. To put it precisely, this "show" turned the CD into a souvenir.
Exploiting the black-and-white imagery of the band logo to the hilt, the show kicked off with "What Do You Want from Me?," sending Rutherford whirling through a torrent of monochromatic imagery and making him look like a punked-out Alice falling through the looking-glass. Lots of Wiped Out turned up on the set list ( "Daddy Issues," "Prey," "The Beach" ) along with the hits ( yes, the chorus of "Afraid" with "F*** you anyway..." got a singalong ) but that hardly mattered.
With Rutherfordin his "sleepy-hippy-punk-angel" mode and a constant barrage of seductive, disturbing, and engaging imagery projected around himthis version of The NBHD was not about atmospherics but creating a fully immersive experience. The kicker of the show found Rutherford alone onstage for a nearly naked medley which included "Lurk," "Jealou$y," "Dangerous," and "#ican'teven." To say that that extended solo section was daring for a relatively young band is putting it mildly and though Wiped Out may imply that The NBHD is putting itself in a musical corner, that show points to an unexpected and exciting new direction.
Heads up: Ono will be dropping its new release at The Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western Ave., on Thursday, Oct. 29. On Wed., Nov. 18, at the same venue, the queer-flavored Glitter Creeps will be celebrating its one-year anniversary with Lucy Stoole, Micahu and the Shapes, and Beastii.